Some people are gay, get over it.

Seriously, get over it. Once you do, everyone will be happier – most importantly you.

But Brian, God says that being gay is an abomination and therefore wrong.

Let’s suppose for a moment, that everybody in the country was christian and believed that to be true. (I’ll leave that argument for a whole other blog entry) Even if you’re a christian I’d say to you: “It’s not your job to enforce that!” That’s between the gay man* and his god. When judgement day comes, he’ll have to answer for his actions, same as anybody. The grand tally will be added up and he will be judged.

Our job, is to love each other and reach out the hand of friendship to all of our fellow men. We don’t have to do as they do, but we do have to love them as neighbors, citizens, fellow humans. I believe with all my heart we will be judged for that as well!

So how will you be judged?

Go back to your bible and read Jesus’ teachings on how we are to treat each other. I don’t recall any footnotes or list of exceptions. Leave judgement to the professionals. Trust me, we’re no good at it.

But Brian, I believe in a literal and complete interpretation of the Bible. We must follow every word.

Oh, please! You don’t either. You’ve already picked and chosen which passages to obey and which ones to overlook. (Leviticus is a common book for the overlookers – read it again and tell me how literally you’ve lived your life.) Besides, it’s not your job to make sure Adam or Steve or Linda or Elsie lives by the Bible, it’s your job to make sure you live by the Bible. If your interpretation of the scriptures says that you should not be gay, then don’t be!

Which brings me to this point: I don’t really think you have a choice about being gay or not. It’s not a switch you can turn on or off at will – even through prayer or counseling or extensive therapy. You can’t control who you’re attracted to. You just can’t.

How many women stay with their abusive husbands or have endless relationships with awful men? How many men gravitate to women who belittle them and treat them poorly? We all make irrational choices when it comes to attraction. Choices that would be radically different if we had even partial cognitive logical control.

How many of us have made the “sensible choice” only to pine away wondering what the exciting irrational choice would have been?

As with many of my blogs, I’m going to take you on a thought experiment. Say that you’re a guy who prefers tall, skinny brunettes. (substitute your own preferences here, silently to yourself – I don’t really need to know). Now suppose a dictator took over and mandated by law that you had to be attracted to buxom, rubenesqueblonds. (again, substitute your version of “the opposite”) Could you be attracted to that type of person? Could you change your wants and innermost desires?

There are some types of people that make me catch my breath – that make my heart skip a beat or cause me to forget what I’m talking about. This happens way below the conscious level. It can’t be retrained or denied. It simply is. How I act upon it is my choice, for sure, but the fundamental attraction is well beyond my control. It certainly can’t be legislated away.

Now back to the thought experiment. Now suppose they unearthed new scrolls in the Bible. These irrefutable scrolls say that to be moral, righteous and a good christian, you must only lie down with the same sex. Don’t get wrapped up in “but that would never happen…” That’s not the point. The point is: could you change who you’re attracted to? Could you do it? Do you really have a choice.

Now notice I didn’t try to phrase this so that the gay readers could apply themselves to the thought experiment. They’ve been living with this their whole lives – or at least since they suspected they were different. They don’t need my little conundrum.

But Brian, the gays are bent on recruiting us. They can’t reproduce so the only way they can advance their agenda is to convert and/or molest our children. They must be stopped!

Where to begin. Have you talked with a gay person before? Here’s a little secret about gay people. The overwhelming majority of them want the same things you do. Happiness, money, family, beer… They don’t want extra rights, they want to not be badgered, belittled and shunned. They don’t want for you to be gay! Indeed, the more enlightened might not wish that curse on anyone.

Mind you, it’s not a curse except in how a lot of uncaring people keep treating them. If we straight people stopped treating them that way, there would be no gay agenda. The entire gay agenda is to get us to stop treating them like lepers, nothing more.

And being gay doesn’t make you a child molester. In fact, most men who molest little boys are sick individuals who either need an outlet for their repressed sexuality or feel the need to assert their dominance over a smaller, helpless being. Many of these people were molested themselves. The vast majority of child molesters have jobs, wives, families and good standing in their community. Could some of them be gay and in denial? Sure, but most of the research tells us that these people haven’t even advanced enough (or have regressed so much) to have a proper sexual preference. They have no framework of human sexual interaction on which to hang a gender attraction. In most cases, they seek children that are the age that they were when they were molested. Kind of a sick “pay it forward” mentality.

That’s not being gay.

Gay people are saints – some are anyway. Some are assholes. Some are greedy, some are arrogant, some are kind and gentle, some are introspective. They run the full gamut of human characteristics. If we take away the stigma and the fear, they will become indistinguishable from anyone else in this country.

But Brian, they’re strange and odd. They have weird ways of behaving and I have no way to know what to expect from them. Can’t they just act like us?

The article is funny because there’s a germ of truth in there. So why do they have parades where they have to climb in our faces and (literally) shake their tail feathers? I have my own suspicions. I think much of it is overcompensation. (see my blog on the Reverend Wright and over-correction) You have to go a bit too far to bring things back to even. I think some of it might be an attempt to gain courage in the face of so much persecution. It may even be an attempt to get back at the bigots by making them as uncomfortable as possible. While often counterproductive, it’s still a common response to such outright hatred. Or perhaps provoking overt hatred to expose it to the light. Lifting the log to see the crawlies.

But Brian, if we allow gays to marry, have children, live “normal” lives, that will devalue the truly normal life that I lead.

If it weren’t such a prevalent attitude, that would be laughable. That’s a crap argument and here’s why:

Marriage. Nobody gives meaning to a marriage except for the person and their spouse. (If you are religious, you, your spouse and God) That’s it. No one else can come between you unless you let them. Nothing that anyone else does can change your marriage. It is what you make of it, no more and no less. Why would you want to deny someone else that joy, tedium, stability and ennui? If you’re looking at everyone else, you need to pay more attention to your own spouse!

Parenting. Nearly all studies on this subject show no discernible difference between children raised by gay parents and those raised by straight parents. They’re no more likely to be gay. (although I suspect they’re more likely to be tolerant!) I also suspect that a gay couple has a leg up over a single parent.

So Brian, I’ve read your arguments and agree that we should move on. What do I do now?

(Hey, this is my blog. I can dream a little can’t I?)

The beauty of this is that you don’t really have to do anything. You have to stop hating people because you don’t like the way their girlfriend looks. They’re not hurting you. If they’re not having sex right in front of you, it’s not really any of your business how “special” their friendship is. It doesn’t matter in terms of your relationship with them. Move on, get over it.

Stop measuring your life by comparing it to theirs. No one can devalue your life but you. Live for yourself and let the rest of us do the same! Unless they gays are preventing you from visiting your spouse in the hospital or refusing to let you include your loved ones on your insurance, they’re not hurting you. Any hurt or discomfort you feel is of your own making. Get over it!

They just want the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You know, those pesky rights our founding fathers said were inalienable. Really, that’s all they want. They don’t want special treatment, they don’t want you to become gay, they don’t want your children to be gay. They just want to get by, find a purpose, an identity, a place in this world. And I’m quite certain that if you can lay down your burden, your mistrust, your need to “fix” them, you can move on with your life and concentrate on these same things in your own life. Let them be. Just let them be and they will be your friends, neighbors, coworkers, etc. You won’t even notice. And you can concentrate your worries on the big stuff – the stuff that really matters.

Just get over it.

This entry was posted
on Friday, August 6th, 2010 at 11:41 pm and is filed under Politics.
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